by Rick Lowe
The governing Progressive Liberal Party led by the Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie are making some overtures that should make us all stop in our tracks.
- They are talking about nationalising (a forceful take over) the phone company that was privatised during 2011. (Moody's launches probe into BTC talks, Nassau Guardian, July 31, 2012) (An investor calls it nationalisation, The Tribune Editorial, July 31, 2012)
- They are discussing forcing banks to write off interest, and even principle, from bad mortgages as a result of the economic slow down.
- They are talking about forcing employers to pay staff for lunch hours among other policies.
- They reportedly said: “Our policies must now be even more engaged with respect to small hotel properties. We cannot have an investor come into Eleuthera, this part where there is no other such investment, and fail, therefore we must get directly involved in what he is doing and give him the support he needs.” (The Tribune, July 31, 2012).
First of all, investors, Bahamian and Foreign alike, should understand that their voluntary ventures are at their own risk. If they make lots of money great. If they lose money, well those are the breaks. Failure is an important part of entrepreneurship. Crony Capitalism like US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama is not the way to go.
It's as if they've forgotten or do not understand the ramifications of all the international agreements the country has signed? Not to mention the condemnation or possible censure by these world bodies with which we've agreed about how we will operate.
If you've read F.A. Hayek's great treatise the Road to Serfdom, or Ayn Rand's, Atlas Shrugged you would see the disturbing signs. Fascism – a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology – comes to mind.
Quo Vadis Bahamas? I'm hoping this is all a bad dream and we'll wake up from it tomorrow.
Seems to me like Christie has lost his freaking mind.This is very disturbing,am I next,are you next,who is next ? That is the type of thing Hugo Chavez would do,not the prime minister of the Bahamas.Are they not thinking at all ? What message does this send out,most certainly not a good one. He can’t be for real with this,God help us all.This is out of control.Someone needs to have a serious talk to him.There has to be someone that can pull him aside & stop this madness.
Wake up? If conscientious Bahamians have not awoken by now, what you have foretold of is inevitable.
Ardent supporters of both political parties bear much responsibility however, preferring to “invest” their faith blindly in individual personality based leadership, while switching off their own logic and rationale.
A global phenomenon to be sure.
Commitments made by our Government on the international stage seem to be lost on the new Government, nor do they seem to realize the all encompassing and ever increasing scope.
Most legislation passed by the former Government in their three terms were specifically geared to comply with WTO rules and trade agreement stipulations.
While the former administration chose to keep the public largely ignorant, the current Administration seem to be wallowing in it.
Too few question much at all, nor think things through.
Masters of unintended consequences.
The bush is no longer ours alone to play in, or burn down as we see fit.
Socialism is alive in the Bahamas Rick, when most Bahamians still believe the government has money, someone best and I mean now, start a campaign to tell Bahamians how the PLP will bankrupt the Bahamas.
Unfortunately, it is what it is. In regards to your second point, even the head of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Ed Demarco, sees a huge amount of uncertainty in regards to a principal reduction program for US mortgages. Here is a recent article on the stance he has taken:
http://business.time.com/2012/08/01/why-is-ed-demarco-blocking-a-win-win-housing-program/
LOL!!!!! Rick you’re really too old to be telling Bogeyman (boogerman for old school Bahamians)stories man! The sky is falling and we are about to have locust storms and pestilence. This is the same reaction we got from the lunatic fringe at every critical stage in our national development. Indpependance, National Insurance, The Defense Force, you name it. It was always going to be the absolute end of life as we know it. Fact is we have yet to see these outcomes and we now wonder where we would have been had we not sought these developments. If I’m not mistaken Cable and Wireless has been run out of three countries in The Caribbean in recent years. As far as I can tell no country in The Caribbean has failed in recent years and certainly none because of the absence of CWC. I do believe that stopping the onerous presence of a leaching CWC is the best thing that can hapen to any economy. If the government is urging banks to make adjustments to save value on their mortgages maybe the banks should be paying for that advice because its the best advice and the most logical conclusion. If banks foreclose on these nortgages ata atime when there is precious little hope of selling the forclosed homes even at a starkly reduced price, how does that benefit the bank. maintaining the mortgages and keeping the invested owners in the homes is the best thing for the banks. The most absolutely ridiculous of your claims is the paid lunch one. The provisions proposed seek to clarify and define the working hours under the Employment Act specifically because the provisions in sections 8 and 9 were unclear and the number of disputes over overtime in particular were catastrophic. The proposed measures also provide for the flexibility of and give leave for the employer and employee to enter into separate agreement. This eans that an employer can write his own agreement which carries the power of law.
Investment incentives have to be older than all the hills which have ever been torn down in the name of development. The government says its going to support a developer and that makes them fascist??? So when Kerzner or any other developer was given duty free exemptions that was fascist???!! When the government, (This and almost every other Caribbean destination) assisted hotels with the companion fly free incentives they were being Fascist?!!
The way to bankrupt a country is to invest milions in fraudulent scams like the Nassau Road project which fail to deliver value for the money invested.
I see that Moody’s has given a warning as well.I don’t care who Christie is trying to appease,he is looking more & more like a fool everyday.What does he want to do sell it to Wilson & co ? This is very embarrassing to our country.He was never very high in my books but God knows he is not even in the books now.
Now why would you want to bring age into this Ken :o) I might be older than you LOL.
First of all, if CWC was “run out of three countries” that’s irrelevant to this discussion. Our government made a contract and sold majority ownership, whether it was good, bad or indifferent.
Second, I do not buy your fallacious argument that politicians know best how to protect an asset. Banks and individuals entered into mutually agreed legally binding contracts. It’s not governments place to disturb that arrangement.
Third, sorry to have to say this but it is an outright lie to suggest that employers want to pay staff for their lunch hours. Who pays for unproductive time?
Fourth, if you had read the statement by the prime minister you would know he said a little more than providing duty free incentives. He said we cannot let him fail. There’s a huge difference.
I guess you would have to read a lot more history to understand the course these actions place us on Ken.
If the Nassau Road Projects was a fraudulent scam, someone should go to jail. But I guess you need facts to back your comment up, not just conjecture.
Finally, a contract is sacred, and these proposed actions by the PLP will cheapen their value so much they won’t be worth the paper they’re written on.
They are destroying our economy. They are closet communist. The gov must get out of our way.
They have no right to force an employer to do anything. They help nobody at the end. Because the company will increase is price, people will buy less and at the end the employee might be layoff. They are killing business, in my own view they are criminal.
The government is nuisance.
People must be educated; We must restore courage, honor, morality and the true history.
They are destroying our true value. People must understand they are and have been manipulated, indoctrinated with progressive`communist ideology. All this are lies in order to get people to believe in a totalitarian government.
This is Marxist cultural. Destroying family, culture, they are creating war between classes of people, war between man and women, war between relgion etc…
when is Christie going to help me ? All I want him to do is stop charging an arm & two legs for the business license while simultaneously killing us with duty.It has to stop.If I hear one more politician talking about they are for small business I think I’ll puke.If they were at all interested in helping the economy,they would ease up on us instead of clamping down.My hard earned money is being stolen from me to fly Fred Mitchel around the globe again,plus send thirty people to the Olympics that should not even be there.Its all a game to them,a game that they are bilking the business community for & it has to stop.
Dennis,
They want to destroy the economy, so they can have a better control over the people.
\ \Ignorant people will believe those totalitarian leader saying that :’’ the problem must be solve , we need more government , we must control everything‘’ The totalitarian who made the problem worst are the one to offer the solution which will be more control and less liberty. Just like it happen in Germany when the destruction of their currency happens, it opens to Nazi, totalitarian government.
We must get the message pass; get the message out to the people that we have been dupe\( E G Griffin with Peter Shiff in an interview)
I think, the way to make some change would be if we have a strong speech, a good rhetoric, and inform as many people we can with example that will affect their life directly.
One could only hope & pray liberty.I’m afraid the majority of people think the government will save them & they also think all business people are bad.Seems to me that the government thinks that business people think like them so they will do whatever they can to screw them hard & dry(Keeping all the grease for themselves)
Those someone can tell me the % of people working for the gov’t by location. ( Freepot, Nassau, Abaco etc..) compare to all the population in the working force.
Thank you
This might be of interest :
”There is little momentum for reform, and the country appears to be experiencing a gradual loss of competitiveness vis-à-vis those that are moving more rapidly to expand economic opportunity. ”
http://www.heritage.org/index/country/bahamas
When all is said and done and a lot has been said above, the fundamental issue here is the sharply conflicting political ideology of a freedom loving society based on free market principles vs an authoritarian society where government (central economic Planning) directs the economy activity of the country.. You can’t have it both ways as the “Mixed Economy” economic model has been a total failure with India in the 1960’s being the prime example..
Time to face the hard facts, with a massive deficit of almost $4.5 billion and a current account deficit of over $220 million, our Bahamas is confronting a financial crisis that we have no way of getting out of.. We are now taxing our way out of existence and are being forced to borrow more and more money to keep the government going.. With 85 percent of our tourism coming from the United States our hotel industry faces a most serious crisis as the United States economy is heading back into stagnation and recession.. Trillion of dollars have been spent by the Obama Administration to stimulate the economy and has been a complete failure.. One has to wonder where are our tourist going to come from?? Without the American visitor, we are in serious trouble..
Now is the time to address these frightening economic and financial issues before it is to late.. Sadly it appears we do not have the wisdom or judgment to do so.. May God’s grace be with us all as that may be our only salvation..